Speaker biographies
Susan Biniaz has been the assistant legal adviser for the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs at the State Department since 1991. The office handles international law aspects of issues such as Antarctica, transboundary air pollution, freedom of navigation and maritime interdiction, climate change, fisheries, trade in hazardous wastes, pollution of the marine environment, maritime boundaries, trade and environment, and scientific cooperation. Previously, she was the assistant legal adviser for European and Canadian affairs at the State Department, as well as an attorney-adviser in various parts of the Legal Adviser’s Office.
Rear Admiral John E. Crowley assumed his current position as the commander of the Ninth Coast Guard District on April 18, 2006. As the region’s operational commander, he leads more than 7,700 regular, reserve, auxiliary, and civilian men and women, two air stations, two air facilities, four sectors, one sector field office, four Marine safety units, eleven cutters, forty-six small boat stations, and five aids to navigations teams. Rear Admiral Crowley’s special assignments include serving as the special assistant to Secretary Tom Ridge of the Department of Homeland Security and the interim director of the Homeland Security Center. His portfolio include work in Department of Defense, Coast Guard, and incident management matters. He was assigned to work on Department of Homeland Security issues while detailed to the Transition Planning Office in the executive office of the president in August 2002. Most recently, Rear Admiral Crowley was the judge advocate general and the chief counsel of the United States Coast Guard. In this capacity he served as the principal legal advisor to the commandant and oversaw the administration of military justice in the Coast Guard.
Jeremy Rabkin is a professor of law at George Mason University. Before joining the faculty in June 2007, he was a professor of government at Cornell University for twenty-seven years. Rabkin is a renowned scholar in international law and was recently confirmed by the U.S. Senate as a member of the board of directors of the United States Institute of Peace. His most recent books include Law without Nations? (Princeton University Press, 2005) and The Case for Sovereignty (AEI Press, 2004).
Ronald Rotunda is a professor of law at George Mason University, where he teaches constitutional law and legal ethics. Before joining the faculty in 2002, he was the Albert E. Jenner Jr. Professor of Law at the University of Illinois. He joined the University of Illinois faculty in 1974 after clerking for Judge Walter R. Mansfield of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, practicing law in Washington, D.C., and serving as assistant majority counsel for the Watergate Committee. In 1993 he was the constitutional law adviser to the Supreme National Council of Cambodia and assisted that country in writing its first democratic constitution. He has consulted with various new democracies in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, including Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine, on their proposed constitutions and judicial codes. Rotunda coauthored Problems and Materials on Professional Responsibility (Foundation Press, 9th ed., 2006) and is the author of a leading course book on constitutional law, Modern Constitutional Law (West Publishing Co., 7th ed,. 2003). He also coauthored Legal Ethics: The Lawyer’s Deskbook on Professional Responsibility (ABA-West Group, St. Paul, Minnesota, 4th ed., 2006) and the five-volume Treatise on Constitutional Law (West Publishing Co., 3rd ed., 1999). He is the author of several other books and more than 200 articles in various law reviews, journals, newspapers, and books in the United States and Europe.
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